‘Poetry’ movie review: A Cannes best screenplay

Korean film contrasts beauty of nature and nature of human cruelty

BY MIRIAM RINN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

MOVIE REVIEW

Written and directed by former South Korean minister of culture Lee Chang-dong, "Poetry," which won best screenplay at Cannes and was an official selection at the Toronto, Telluride, and New York Film Festivals, opens with a pastoral scene of a calm river, where something far off is drifting. As the camera moves closer, we gradually recognize that the floating object is the body of a young girl. Lee Chang-dong repeatedly contrasts the beauty of nature and the nature of human cruelty throughout this film, then reminds the viewer that aging and illness and infirmity are aspects of nature too.

This lyrical Korean drama packs a lot of human experience into the meditative story of an older woman suddenly confronted with her grandson's terrible crime as well as her own deteriorating memory. The still attractive and somewhat vain Mija, played by well-known Korean actress Yun Jung-hee, lives with her churlish teenage grandson Wook (Lee David) in a small South Korean city. Wook's mother is somewhere else, and Mija has sole responsibility for the boy, who is clearly beyond her control. Either absorbed in his electronic devices or hanging out with his friends, Wook barely pays attention to what the older woman says.

Soon after receiving a diagnosis of incipient Alzheimer's from a very blunt young doctor, Mija decides to sign up for a poetry class at the local community center. Maybe she thinks that focusing on language will slow the process of forgetting words. The instructor instead emphasizes that poetry is really about sight — about truly seeing what's in front of our eyes. Unlike the other students, Mija is candid about her frustration with writing poetry. As much as she's tried, she just can't do it, she announces in class. The others, all younger, seem vaguely embarrassed by her admission, and she does seem a bit off as she interacts with them and with the writers she meets at a poetry cafe.

The body in the river is that of a schoolgirl who has drowned herself after being gang-raped at school, the same school that Wook attends. Mija is as horrified by the girl's suicide as she is by the crime, but the fathers of the other guilty boys are much more pragmatic. This problem can be solved by paying the girl's parents restitution, they agree at a meeting, and neither the school nor their sons will suffer long-term harm. As outrageous as this seems to the American viewer, it's presented matter-of-factly in the film, one of several details that makes Korean culture seem extraordinarily callous. When the girl's hysterical mother wails in front of the hospital where her daughter's body has been brought, no one offers her any help or comfort. People stare curiously and walk around her.

Mija has a part-time job as the caretaker for an older man who has suffered a stroke. She comes to his home several days a week to bathe and dress him. He treats her with resigned contempt, and his storekeeper daughter isn't much more polite. At one visit, it becomes obvious that the man has taken Viagra, and when Mija pulls away in disgust, he pleads with her to let him feel like a man one more time. The nonjudgmental tone of this scene suffuses the film: although Mija is repelled by the man's action, he doesn't seem repellent, just selfish and determined. As his caretaker, she already knows him intimately, yet they remain complete strangers. The absence of normal relationships is striking. Mija talks to her daughter on the phone, but never tells her anything. She has neighbors, but apparently no friends. Her relationship with her grandson seems remarkably shallow, though perhaps not so unusual. He agrees to play badminton with her outside their small house, but quickly escapes when his friends show up. There aren't any human relationships that exhibit any real warmth or caring. Mija is solicitous of her grandson's needs, but one doesn't feel that she loves him anymore than he does her. The only real connection Mija makes is with someone she meets at the poetry café, which leads to the film's conclusion, and the spirit of the dead girl.

Despite Mija's isolation and frustrations, the tone of the film is far from tragic. It feels elegiac, and there is always that lovely scenery. Death comes to all, some young, some old, yet the flowers continue to bloom in their time and poets keep writing verses.